07 July 2006

We've managed to secure a bit of a scoop on Dennis Publishing's new enterprise IT website, IT PRO. Here's everything you need to know:

IT PRO will go live in mid-July, focusing on news, reviews, group tests and features for UK business IT users, budget holders and decision-makers.

IT PRO is staffed by Editor Chris Green, who recently joined Dennis from VNU's Computing, and News Editor Iain Thomson, who joined from VNUNet.com. A third member of the editorial team has just been recruited and will be introduced shortly.

In addition to the in-house editorial team, IT PRO has pulled in an array of freelance support to populate the site's eight news and review-driven sections.

Three of these sections -- storage, security and mobile -- will be edited by well-known IT writers Ambrose McNevin and Guy Matthews. Marcus Austin, the former editor of Internet Works and the UK edition of Business 2.0, will provide content on business intelligence and internet. Alan Stevens, a regular contributor to PC Pro will cover the server and networking markets. The remaining channel, Applications, will be managed in-house.

Channel editors will be filing around four or five news stories in each section every week in addition to producing a number of features, comment pieces and tutorials on topical technologies and IT issues.

Additional news coverage will be generated by IT PRO’s in-house news team, with support from freelance news stringers in key overseas markets including the US, Australia and China, and from Reuters.

Reviews will play a major role at IT PRO, with the site providing more standalone enterprise reviews and group tests than any other UK title, and Green himself will oversee the commissioning of reviews. IT PRO will cover software, hardware and services for enterprises with some focus on SME solutions at the larger end of the market. This strategy will ensure that IT PRO and PC Pro minimise any overlap in coverage.

Video and audio will also play a major part in IT PRO's editorial strategy. The site will go live with a number of high-profile video interviews with leading figures in the business IT world, along with video product first looks, video opinion pieces, and a weekly news-in-review audio podcast. New product first looks will be added on a Monday, new interviews on a Wednesday and a new podcast every Friday.

14 comments:

Yes, there are a lot of IT web sites, but they vary widely: some have tiny audiences, some huge. The ones that getting the hits tend to be the ones that invest in the editorial and Chris Green in particular has always struck me as a very strong operator. And Dennis get right far more than they get wrong. With relatively low costs, this is likely to have legs.

Il Cavalier, there's really no mystery here...we were provided with the content for our post by the Editor of the new website himself!

It seems that any cutting and pasting done was undertaken by the lad Green...in our defence, we'd asked for information from him on June 28th, but he only got round to sending us something(clearly, we now realise, the same something the Fullrun received, cheeky monkey) a few days ago.

* did the reporting* didn't take any copy from Chris, * and originated most of the copy that ended up published 10 days later without credit on this blog (apart from the editorialising about "dream teams" and such).

Chris (or whoever's working with him) does indeed seem to be a cheeky monkey, admittedly a busy one. (By now, however, he should have appointed a PR agency, which is good news...)

As for Dennis's relationship with Fullrun, well I'm sure Chris will continue to receive the Fullrunner...

. . . and that Fullrun will view this as positive endorsement of their quality product ;)

You know, World's Leading, you really should think about a subscription (if you haven't already got one)... Less hassle for everyone, really.

Ah, the highways and byways of blog relations ... funny old world, eh?

"Fullrun is quite simply our first - perhaps only - reference point for all things technology and media related in the UK. It's got to be the world's leading...thing...and if we're ever stuck for something to write ourselves, Fullrun's our first port of call. If people weren't so kind as to send us their own copies, we'd be sorely tempted to subscribe."The World's Leading